BIOGRAPHY

JOHN G. (JAY) McKNIGHT

1994

John G. (Jay) McKnight was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1931. He
received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in
1952,
and worked for Ampex Corp from 1952 thru 1972, except for the years
1953...1956 when he served in the US Army, at the Armed Forces
Radio Service (AFRS) in New York City, where he also worked at the
Gotham Recording studio. At Ampex, he served in the magnetic
recording research group, the stereo tape division, and the
professional
audio division. At Ampex, in addition to research he also worked on the
design of the CinemaScope reproducer system; the Models 350, PR-10, and
MR-70; improvements in the high-speed duplication system and operating
procedures at the Ampex Music (Stereo Tape) Division; and developed the
"Ampex Master Equalization" (AME). He has published over 60 technical
papers mostly in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society (AES),
on the theory and practice of magnetic recording, and on audio
engineering
(see the bibliography
of these papers, with many links to the papers). He received the Audio Engineering Society's Publication
Award in 1982.

He is a co-founder of Magnetic Reference Laboratory (MRL) in Mountain
View, California, where he was Engineering Vice-president from 1972 to
1975, and has been the president since 1975. He also develops new products
and directs engineering at MRL.

From 1972 to 1974 he was also a consultant to Scully/Metrotech in
Mountain View, CA, and to MCI in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, on audio systems and magnetic recording.
In 1973 and1974 he was a member of Judge Sirica's "Advisory Panel on White
House Tapes" (“The Watergate Tapes”), and in 1977...79 a member of
the Committee on Evaluation of Sound Spectrograms of the National
Academy of Sciences.

Jay is a Fellow of the AES (1960), received the AES Award
(1971), was President of the Society the for the year 1978/1979, was
made an Honorary Member in 1979, received the Board of Governors Award
in 1990, and the Distinguished Service Medal Award in 2008, for extraordinary service to the Society and contributions to the advancement of knowledge in magnetic recording over a period of more than 50 years. He was a
member of the AES Journal Review Board for the years 1960...2007; he
has been a Governor four times (1962...1964, 1971...1973, 1976...1977,
and 1980...1982), Chairman of the Standards Committee (1971...1974),
Chairman of the Publications Policy Committee (1977...1978),
Chairman of the Historical Committee (1999...2006), and is now the Chair Emeritus of that Committee.

He has been a member of standards committees on audio
engineering and magnetic recording of the AES, ANSI, CCIR, EIA, IEC,
IEEE, NAB, RIAA, and SMPTE, and is presently Chair of the AES Standards
Committee Working Group on Analog Recording, SC-03-01.

He is a senior member of the IEEE, was a member of the “IRE (IEEE)
Professional Group on Audio” when it existed (about 1953...1970), and
has been a member of the IEEE Magnetics Society since about 1968.

Jay and his wife Brigitte live in Cupertino, CA (95014). They have four
adult sons, Ken, Jeff, Rick, and Mike.

His hobbies include hiking, camping and 4-wheel driving; programming
in the Forth computer language; and playing viola in several amateur string quartets,
in community orchestras, and in the orchestras of two Gilbert & Sullivan
opera companies.